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1/30/14

De-Bunking

So just a little disclaimer... This week's decor post isn't full of pretty decor finds or styling ideas. No no, none of that. This project contained a lot of heavy lifting, elbow grease, a strong hubby, and some excessive cursing...

But it does have a pretty nice before and after.

In our house we have a really nice, huge bedroom upstairs that we're planning on turning into a nursery/kid's room eventually. It looked like this when we moved in...

This is also what you see first when you walk in.

I remember my first words to our realtor were, "That bed looks like a death trap." Yeah, it's built (fairly) nice and all, but built-in bunks aren't my jam... I'll explain why in a moment.

Back to the room...

It has a really nice little area with another window and a built-in desk. Which I really love because the desk is actually built really nice. See the top of the tiny little door to the right in the photo above?? Sort of to the left of the desk? There is a matching one on the wall across from it (behind the chair) and it is finished out with lights, carpet, walls. Just like a little play house. So those are super fun for a kid's room.

And here's a shot looking toward the other direction at the huge built-in bookshelves which we really love. Totally looks fine in the photo (from a distance), but the whole thing needs some caulk in certain areas, some trim that isn't complete, and a fresh coat of paint. Pay no attention to the "decor" on the shelf. This room is basically where all of the unused decor in the house comes to hang out.

There are outlets built right in for a tv one day. However, I think it will make an awesome changing area for a babe. :) And notice the little hinged "toy chests" built right in on each side. So neat.

In the photo above, the bunk is around that corner on the right. The room extends about another 5.5 feet or so around that corner. This room is kind of hard to photograph. Oh and all the scrap wood in front of the big closet? Yeah, spoiler alert... The bed came down. ha.

So my thoughts on built-in bunks...
I think they're a great idea if you have a spare room for guests and the such. If you do them really nicely in a way that doesn't look like they're just for kids. However, in an actual kid's room, they're kind of a waste. First of all, if we kept this, a child couldn't actually use the bed (safely) until they were about 4. This room, although large, has no other great place for a crib or bed.

Ok so back to the bunk... The hypothetical kid starts using the bed at, let's say, 4 years old. Who's to say said kid would even like a bunk. They freaked me out as a kid, personally. Then, (best-case scenario) if the child even likes the bed, they'll definitely outgrow it at some point. It's a tiny twin bed. Not to mention, bunks are only "cool" for so long as a child...haha. So let's say 12 is the cut-off. Just seems like a waste to me.
Now, buying a bunk bed for your kids that you can move around, that makes sense. Built-ins are just pretty permanent.

We had planned on getting brave and removing this thing for a while now but we've just kept putting it off. We were afraid mostly of the hole that would be left in the ground where the support comes down (What the heck would even be under there?), and the two main pieces of wood that connected the whole thing to the wall along the head of the bed and the side, which was secured with about 30 scary-looking bolts. I was nervous about the condition that would leave the walls.

So one night I decided to start the "demo". I was pretty excited to get rid of this thing that had become a storage area for reject throw pillows and the such.

Obviously...

lol. We're dorks. But seriously, all the screws were insane. I climbed up in the bed, as you can embarrassingly see above, and started unscrewing anything I could see that attached the rails. We didn't want to just tear into the thing because we wanted to keep our home and walls somewhat in tact. Brad was afraid to climb up in there for any extended period of time because, well, he's a man and he's bigger than me.
Then I removed the ladder...

Haha. Check out all that progress...

At this point we realized we needed a pry-bar for... prying... and so we made a run to Lowes and continued the job.
I should say, Brad continued the job. It got pretty intense removing some of the pieces. I went around removing all the screws that I could and he ripped the pieces down.

It's probably for the best that you can't hear what he was saying.

...or yelling, repeatedly.

One-by-one, the railings came down.

Not gonna lie, watching Brad rip this thing apart was really enjoyable. For many reasons. ;) Kind of a shame we don't have more things to tear down around here...

K, get your mind out of the gutter and stay on subject, Tiff...

Probably the hardest part of the whole thing was getting the large "bottom board" piece out that supports the mattress. I didn't get any photos of that because we were both struggling to get that thing free. Photos weren't exactly a top priority when we were trying to avoid crushing ourselves and sending a random piece of wood through the window.

The rest came down fairly easily...

We all know it's obviously easier to figure things out when you throw in a side-tongue.

Exhibit Q: More proof above of my tufted furniture problem... :/

The whole thing made Waylon a bit nervous with all the loud noises and giant pieces of wood being moved around. He's always had a bit of a phobia of large boxes and moving large objects. Silly boy. But he still liked being right up in the middle of the action.

You can see what the support beam left behind in the floor. Totally wasn't as bad as I thought. It's actually a piece of the old carpet from when the house was originally built surrounded by some wood pieces to support the beam which I unscrewed from the floor as Brad took down some other pieces from the wall. Our current carpet upstairs was put in brand new before we moved in. Not exactly what I would have chosen, but it's new and feels nice and it works. We'd like to eventually put hardwoods in the hallways upstairs to match what we have throughout the rest of the house. But personally, I still like carpet for bedrooms.

Back to the hole...

So I peeled it up, leaving the fresh-looking carpet pad beneath it and decided to improvise...

I cut out a piece of carpet from the floor of our tiny linen closet in our master bathroom. On the floor, we keep a basket that covers the carpet anyway. So I cut the piece I needed from the back corner. You can't see it in the closet even if you look for it.

Speaking of not being able to see it...

Can you tell where I patched the hole?? Pretty proud of that one. For now, it's just sitting in the empty spot, but I'm going to use some sort of liquid adhesive to keep it in place, rather than staples or anything that could potentially poke bare footsies.

Here's the view of the room now when you enter. Much better, huh??

Amazingly enough, the walls are in great shape! So relieved that whoever built the bed didn't use any construction adhesive or anything like that on the main beams on the walls. I just need to spackle the holes, and cut out a few ends of the huge heavy duty anchoring screws that broke off along one wall. There are about 5 that did that as Brad removed them. My dad has a Dremel tool attachment to saw them out. So I'm waiting to get that from him until I patch everything so I can do that all at once. Then, a fresh coat of paint and we're in business.

I actually like the paint color in this room. It's the same as the color in our master bedroom. It was freshly painted when we moved in. This room was really interesting before we moved in! The bead board was dark blue and the walls and ceilings were blue and white clouds. I can't even imagine what it was like for the painters to cover all that! Funny thing is, I think the color they used when they repainted it is the original color used when the house was built. Can you tell behind where the beams were on the bed?? It looks SO similar. In our basement on our electrical breaker box, the original paint color sheet is taped to the inside. They said the color they used originally for this room was China Doll by Sherwin Williams. So I think since it matches so well and I know I like that color anyway, I'm going to pick up a can of that and paint only those two walls and see how it blends with the others. We'll see!

As for all the mess left behind, I was expecting a room full of scrap wood. So pleasantly surprised that this is all we have to deal with. Haven't figured out what exactly we're going to do with it yet. It's really nice wood and it's not all busted up since we removed it nicely. We hate to just drop it at the dump, so we're going to see if we can find someone who may want it.

Possibly the most pleasant surprise of this whole project was how pleasant it actually was. We had been building it up in our minds since we moved in that this would be a lot more difficult than it actually was. We were shocked at how quickly it came down and how the floor and walls aren't totally destroyed.

Ahhhhh... such a relief that this house is officially de-bunked. I feel like one day, when we do have a little one on the way, it will be so nice to be able to enjoy fixing up the space and not having to do anything major like this.

This room is going to be SO fun to see come together when that time comes! For now, the goal is just to spackle/paint the walls and get it cleaned up. I know we wont make any more big decisions for this room (lighting, etc) until we've been expecting for a bit. Don't get excited just yet! Nothing to report. But I will of course keep you all posted as the house and everything else comes together!

Have you all tackled any projects like this before? Funny what a great stress-reliever tearing out something like this is. :)

Thanks for sharing your updates.I love how you incorporate lifestyle type posts into your blog rather than focusing on beauty posts only! I love your house and style! We just bought a new house, so I love looking to your blog for ideas.We're also trying for a little one (not assuming you are), so I'm hopeful we'll have one around the same time so I can get nursery and baby ideas from you as well!

I really enjoyed this post but as for bunk beds, I had one my whole childhood long with a slide down ( which made getting up for school fun and my room the coolest one of all my friends) and my parents made it a full sized bed right away so as a kid having sleepovers meant 3 girls could fit easily and as i grew 2 people still had comfortable space in there too. Just think of all the extra room for activities that is created underneath and it gives a nice extra retreat spot within the childs room for them ( or frees up more space for a second bed if y'all are blessed with more little ones :)

I love your house! Tiff can you please tell me if you use just a phone camera to take these pictures (or a camera/model?)? I love how clear your images are. You'll make a very creative bubbly Mum one day, your children will be very lucky.

For the carpet patch, the best glue is gorilla glue. I think it's sold at Lowes and/or Home Depot. The guy who installed my carpet recommended it for glueing carpet edges so they don't fray (I took some leftover carpet to make a small rug for my laundry area). He said its the best glue for carpets!

Thank you SO much for that! I actually haven't done anything to the little patch of carpet since the post!! (since no one is really in there) I'm going to pick some of that up for sure! Thanks again for the tip! <3